Maech 6, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



355 



memorial to the late Sadlerian Professor, Dr. 

 Cayley. We learn from the London Times 

 that, having in mind that the presidency of 

 this congress was the last public appearance 

 of Sir George Darwin, his colleagues in the 

 administration of the congress have desired to 

 provide a memorial of his work in the same 

 connection. Accordingly a brass plate with 

 armorial decorations has been prepared, and is 

 now offered by Sir Joseph Larmor on behalf 

 of his colleagues to the university. It is pro- 

 posed to fix this brass in the chief mathe- 

 matical lecture-room in the new lecture-rooms 

 building. 



Mb. H. B. Woodward, F.E.S., formerly 

 assistant-director of the British Geological 

 Survey, died on February 6, aged sixty-five 

 years. 



Major G. E. H. Barrett-Hamilton died on 

 January 17 in South Georgia, where he was 

 conducting an investigation into the whaling 

 industry on behalf of the Colonial Office and 

 the British Natural History Museum. 



Dr. Karl Bolckers, professor of ophthal- 

 mology at Kiel, has died at the age of seventy- 

 eight years. 



We regret also to record the death of M. 

 Alphonse Bertillon, the distinguished French 

 anthropometrist. 



The Russian minister of public instruction 

 has made a grant of $50,000 to the St. Peters- 

 burg Academy of Sciences to assist a search 

 for radio-active minerals throughout the Rus- 

 sian Empire. 



Canada has established a forest products 

 laboratory in connection with McGill Uni- 

 versity at Montreal, on the lines of the United 

 States institution of the same sort at the 

 University of Wisconsin. 



Provision is to be made in connection with 

 the French department of war for continuing 

 the aerological work carried on by the late M. 

 Leon Teisserenc de Bort, at his observatory at 

 Trappes. 



The annual general meeting of the Ameri- 

 can Philosophical Society will be held on 

 April 23, 24 and 25, 1914, beginning at 2 p. m. 

 on Wednesday, April 23. Members are re- 

 quested to send to the secretaries, at as early 



a date as practicable and before March 5, 1914, 

 the titles of papers which they intend to pre- 

 sent so that they may be announced on the 

 preliminary program which will be issued 

 immediately after that date and which will 

 give in detail the arrangements for the meet- 

 ing. Papers in any department of science 

 come within the scope of the society which, as 

 its name indicates, embraces the whole field 

 of useful knowledge. The publication com- 

 mittee, under the rules of the society, will 

 arrange for the immediate publication of the 

 papers presented in either the Proceedings or 

 the Transactions, as may be designated. 



The fifth International Congress of Philos- 

 ophy will be held in London beginning on 

 August 31, 1915, under the presidency of Dr. 

 Bernard Bosanquet. The sections proposed 

 are : (1) General Philosophy and Metaphysics. 

 (2) Logic and Theory of Knowledge. (3) 

 History of Philosophy. (4) Psychology. (5) 

 ^Esthetics. (6) Moral Philosophy. (7) Social 

 Philosophy and Philosophy of Law. (8) Phi- 

 losophy of Religion. All communications 

 should be directed to the honorary secretary of 

 the congress. Dr. H. Wildon Carr, More's 

 Garden, Chelsea, London, S.W. 



The territory within a mile or two of each 

 of the mouths of the Mississippi is character- 

 ized by large swellings or upheavals of tough 

 bluish-gray clay, to which has been applied 

 the name " mud lumps." Many of these mud 

 lumps rise just offshore and form islands hav- 

 ing a surface extent of an acre or more and a 

 height of 5 or 10 feet, but some do not reach 

 the water surface. These mud lumps, in addi- 

 tion to being of importance because of their 

 effects on the channels of the Mississippi 

 River, are also of considerable scientific inter- 

 est, for their development is not included in 

 the usual conception of delta growth, and 

 although several theories have been advanced, 

 their cause must still be regarded as uncertain. 

 To an observer at the mouth of the river the 

 idea that the region is a great dumping 

 ground for a large part of the United States 

 is most impressive. The land is being built 

 out into the sea at an estimated average rate 

 of about 300 feet a year; in some places the 

 rate is much more rapid than in others. In 



